Tall Leaf Spray

 Hello, and Happy Friday.  

Today's card is one I made in which I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest.  I have had this leaf die for a while but just never got around to using it.  My card is done with SSS Etched Tall Leaf Spray die, oxide and spray stains, and gold foil embossing

I started by cutting out my leaf using canson watercolour 140lb paper.  I sprayed a variety of distress inks onto my glass mat, then dabbed my leaf into it, picking up various colours, leaving a few of them with the natural colour of the watercolour paper.  

I also spritzed down my slim line watercolour paper, and just spritzed a bit of distress ink and then spritzed with water again, held up right and side to side to have the inks flow across the card.

After everything was dried, I flicked on some gold and copper paints.

For my sentiment I gold foiled a Spellbinders sentiment and cut it out with an Altenew sentiment label die, which was then layered onto the rusty colour c/s.

To finish I added some Bronze mix jewels from Little Things by Lucy.  I also matched up a brown paper bag envelope to go with it.

My second card was basically cased from the one I saw on Pinterest.  I made this one first, and then I created my first card in a different colour.

Well that's it for me today. Happy Labour Day weekend! See you again real soon,

Pauline

Snowflake Cascade

Hi there.  I'm back today to share a few more Christmas cards.  Today's stamp set that I'll be sharing is one I purchased during the Stamptember release by Simon Says Stamps in collaboration with Gina K. I missed out on Gina K's Stamptember release last year, so I made sure I grabbed it early this time around because when they are gone, they are gone!

One of the stamps in this set is a half snowflake, which allows you to adjust the space between each half when you stamp them in order to place a sentiment between.

My first card I embossed the snowflake in white ep, then sponged distress oxide peeled paint, then tumbled glass. I then sprayed the front of the card using Shimmer Craft spray - sparkle, and boy does it sparkle! I embossed the sentiment in white onto some navy cardstock, which was then popped up for a bit of dimension. This was then layered onto some navy c/s, then onto the card base which is a shimmer light blue.  I've had this for so long I don't even know who makes it or where I bought it.  To finish off I added some Prismatic Sky Pearls from Studio Katia. 

For my second card, I embossed the snowflake top and bottom along with the sentiment in white ep.  I then sponged distress oxide worn lipstick and a bit of candied apple.  I then splattered the card with bit of water then laid some paper towel to soak up the splatters.  I then embossed the ornament holder in silver and the bow in white.  I then sprayed the front with Shimmer craft spray. Iridescent bubbles- Studio Katia were added to the ornament.  I cut a couple of strips of silver mirror c/s and added to each side and then onto a white card base.

There are a few more stamps in this stamp set I want to use, not sure I'll get around to using them this year, if not for next year for sure.

I've been working on a lot of Christmas cards for my orders but they are already ones I have posted, hence the lack of postings over the last few weeks.  I do have some new ones to share, just need to take pictures.

I'm off on vacation this week, so I hope to get all my orders completed and mailed out to my friends, so they have time to mail them off.

I appreciate your visit today.  Whatever you are up to today, have a great one!

Pauline

Winter Landscapes

 Hello friends, hope you all had a great weekend! This weekend was beautiful weather wise.  Mid 70's lots of sun and warmth and very breezy on Sunday.  Today looks like the last day of this warmer weather as tomorrow for the 2 weeks temperatures in the upper 60's.  But then again it is fall!

Sorry I never posted in a while, last week was just crazy busy at work since I had Monday and Tuesday off, trying to play catch up the rest of the week.  I'm still working on my Christmas card stash, so today I'm back to share a couple more with you.

I'm using Memory Box Single Pine Landscape Frame. Love making these types of cards the die cut does it all for you.  Just a little bit of ink blending, stenciling, embossing and a sentiment!

Both cards were done the same I just changed the oxide inks I used for the background.

Oxide inks used for this one:  Speckled egg, Stormy Sky and a bit of Blue Print Sketch. A light blend of each, the used the snowflake stencil from The Greetery and applied Stormy Sky through the stencil.

I embossed the card base using a snowflake embossing folder.

I cut two frames and glued together for some stability, then stamped the sentiment.  I then put this piece into my splatter box and sprayed it with Imagine Sheer Shimmer craft spray Sparkle, and boy is it sparkly.  I tried to get a picture of it, but my camera just wouldn't pick it up, but it's there.

Second card done same way except I used these oxide inks: speckled egg and tumbled glass.

I plan on making more of these, some with a winter pinkish sky, some with a bit of yellow.  These do work up fast once you get going on them.

So happy you stopped by today.  Keep well, enjoy your day!

Pauline

Brilliant Butterfly

Hello! I'm finally back, last week has been  busy but I did manage to work on some cards. I finally got around to taking pictures of them yesterday.

My card today is one of my favourites.  I'm using MFT Dandelion Greenery and Brilliant Butterlies, I'm in love with both sets.  Love the whimsical feeling to the butterflies, and there are a variety of shapes and sizes, and for the greenery, I"m just a sucker for such things, so basically anything nature related I love.

I started off by stamping the greenery using PTI  spring moss, simply chartreuse and a bit of hawaiian shores, then stamped a few times and filled in where needed.  I used the tiny floral stamp and stamped using first and second generation stamping here and there.

For the butterfly, I used my distress inks - I actually only used the ink that was on the daubers, so not quite sure of the exact colours, but if guessing I would think worn lipstick pick raspberry and mustard seed.  I then over stamped it with the black wing overlay. So pretty isn't it? Can you see that bit of script in the background?.  I used a Magenta Company script stamped, add some spring moss very lightly to the stamp then took a rag and removed some of the ink in places then stamped very lightly, I just wanted a very loosely stamped script for a bit of interest.

The sentiment I from Simon Says Stamps - Tiny words, stamped in black versafine (using my misti). To finish off I added some tiny bubblegum pearls and iridescent butterflies, both from Studio Katia. Also added some clear glitter using my Nuvo clear glitter pen to the coloured portion of the butterfly.

MFT stitched rectangle to cut out the image, and background paper is from Memory Box.

So glad you stopped by today.  I"m off today as this is Canada's Civic Holiday, I"m hoping to get a bit more stamping done.

Have yourself a fabulous day! 💗

Pauline

Hello

A few weeks ago we took a drive to London (ON) and I stopped at my favourite stamp store - Stamp Art. If you live in the area and looking for a great stamp store, this is it.  Nancy carries a wide variety of many companies and will be glad to order something for you if you don't see it in her store.  I literally could spend a couple of hours in her store, just so much to see and she is always very helpful at showing you 'what's new'.

So with the 'what's new', one of the many things  I came home with was this beautiful die from Studio Light. I went through some of my backgrounds I made and came across this vibrant one. 

I think I used distress oxide sprays onto some watercolour paper.  I cut it using an MFT scallop die, cut out the floral from white c/s twice and glued together.  I also cut a 'hello' from black c/s twice and layered.  The hello die is from creative expressions.

To finish off I added some sequins and pearls and used my Nuvo clear glitter pen for sparkle on the flowers.

I love that dies make the card making process much quicker.  What did we ever do before dies were available??

Thanks for stopping in today.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Pauline

Boxing Day Birthday

Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Not only is today Boxing Day, but it is my birthday!!! Yay!!!!! I guess that means I'm another year older, Yikes!! LOL And yes I do get presents both days, Christmas and birthday.  My Mom always made sure to keep my birthday separate, as it should be right?

I don't have a birthday card to share today, but I do have a couple of Christmas cards I made last week, which I'm going to make a few more of the same and put these towards Christmas 2020.

Now the background idea was not mine, I saw these beautiful cards displayed over at The Foiled Fox, and right away I knew I had to make these backgrounds myself. I did 3 different coloured backgrounds, but the pink one, I messed it up so it went in the garbage.  But, I have the other 2 to share with you today.


First up is the blue - all done with distress oxide inks and MFT drifts and hills stencil.  Inks used were: stormy sky, peacock feathers, salty ocean, evergreen bough and chipped sapphire. Start by laying the stencil towards one side about 1/2 inch in from the edge, sponge the ink, then rotate the stencil to use one of the  another sides, and repeat until your entire cardstock is covered.  I also used canson 140lb watercolour paper for this.  I then spritzed the background with Imagine Sheer shimmer craft spray sparkle.  It leaves a beautiful sparkly background.  Not sure how well you can see it on the blue card, but think it's better on the green card to see.
I then cut out of gold mirri cardstock the tree.  The tree is from Inlovearts. I added a clear crystal rhinestone for the star and a couple of blue sequins on the tree.

For my second card again I used distress oxide inks and stencil - cracked pistachio, evergreen bough, pine needles, ice spruce, peacock feathers and twisted citron.
The tree die used is from Penny Black - Xmas tree border # 51-454  I cut it from two different green cardstocks, then offset them.  I also cut the front green piece using an MFT hill die, then stamped a sentiment from SSS, added some foam tape behind, then added chunky glitter along the top of the hill.  The tree die also has tiny star dies, so cut them out of the same greens and then adhered them here and there.

 

The pink background was very pretty, but when I went to emboss and branch on it I didn't like the way it turned out, so I will give the pink another try.

Enjoy the rest of your Holidays, thanks for stopping by.

Pauline

Live for the moments....

Hello there.  Hope your week is going well. 

Today's card features another image from the Tim Holtz Theories collection.  I think these images are fabulous for those 'masculine' cards.

I started by spraying some distress oxide inks onto some canson watercolour paper.  Drying with a heat gun in between, and then adding more ink.  Once completely dry, I stamped some background images using distress oxide inks, and also used a 'sun ray' stencil in the left upper corner.  I then placed the paper into my misti, then stamped the image using black archival ink - I believe I stamped a couple of times to get a nice dark impression.

I then added some washi tap along the bottom, used a PTI die to cut the circles at the top using some brown shimmer c/s, stamped the sentiment onto some black c/s, and embossed with white ep, I then trimmed the edges.

For the turquoise background, I took my distress oxide ink pads and ran them across my turquoise c/s to give it added colour, then layered this onto a piece of brown shimmer c/s. I also cut 3 little banners and lined them up the left side of my main piece (used scraps from my main background).

To finish off I added some enamel dots.

I'm always a bit hesitant to make cards like this, not sure what it is about it, but once I get moving along I really enjoy doing these types of cards. You will never get 2 the same as inks always blend differently each time.

Thanks for stopping by, and I wish you a happy and safe weekend!

Pauline

Theories #1

Hello all.  Does everyone struggle with masculine cards as I do?  I recently purchased as Tim Holtz - Theories stamp set from Simon Says Stamps when they had a sale, with masculine cards in mind.  I wanted to use my distress oxide inks so this stamp set was perfect for stamping over the background.

I started by applying my distress oxide inks to my glass mat, spritz with water then tapped my water colour paper into it, heat set it and repeated until I was happy.  Once it was completely dry it was a bit darker than what I had anticipated, but went with it anyway.  I stamped one of the images form the stamp set, using my Misti as I knew I would probably have to stamp it a few times to get a nice dark impression.  I used black archival ink for this.

I cut the image out using MFT wonky stitched rectangle, then used another die I purchased from Aliexpress (the rust colour paper in behind). I stamped Happy birthday (Simon Says Stamps) onto a piece of the rust paper and then used a stitched banner to cut it out -(also Simon Says).  The blue paper in the background is from Basic Grey, just some scraps I had in my basket, sponged some distress oxide vintage photo around the edges, then distressed them. Layered all this onto SU Not Quite Navy.

To finish off I added a couple of small enamel dots and a copper dot. Just finishing up another masculine card from the same set.  There are 4 images so my goal is to make a card using each.

Thanks for stopping by, have yourself a fabulous day!

Pauline

Doodled lace

Hi there, I'm back today to share a card I just made.  When I was in London on Saturday, I stopped at the  stamp store there and lucky me, they had 25% off everything in the store.  They are making room for new items from Creativation.  I picked up this Altenew Doodle lace cover plate.  Because it is a bit busy wasn't sure how I was going to display it on a card.

I also picked up some of the new distress oxide inks at Paper Pickle once I got back into town.  I wanted to try out the new inks so thought I should make a distress background to go under the cover plate.

I started with a piece of Canson 140lb water colour paper.  I smooshed the follow distress oxide inks on my teflon craft mat - shaded lilac, tattered rose, wild honey - gave it a spritz and then laid my water colour paper onto it, lifted up and then heat set it.  The tattered rose is really pale, but I wanted a bit more vibrancy, so added a bit of picked raspberry to my craft mat, spritzed again and then tapped my c/s into the ink where I needed to add more colour.  I heat set again, then repeated once more.  I then spritzed some water into my hand then dropped the water onto the distress background, let it set for about 15 sec, then took a paper towel and laid it over the card stock, picking up any loose water.  By doing this it will leave watermarks.  I then reached for my adirondack metallic - gold dabber, and it was dried up inside.  So I took a craft knife put some on a palette then added a bit of water and mixed it up.  took a fine paintbrush, dipped it into the gold wash and flicked it on my background.

I cut the background down to size to fit behind the doodle lace, adhered and then adhered to my card base.  The sentiment is from Altenew  - Sentiments & quotes set.  I embossed it in white onto some grey c/s, trimmed the ends.  I then added a piece of pink under neath it.  I added dimensionals behind the sentiment before adhering to the card.  Then I added lots of sequins in various colours.  I hope I didn't go overboard!

Overall, this was a quick and easy card, great to mass produce, with different colours and sentiments.

Have a wonderful day!

PS - my new photo at the top is a picture Bill took a few weeks ago.  A 4th year bald eagle floating down Lake St. Clair on a chunk of ice!

Pauline